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Scott Niemi of Lewiston is a grassroots organizer, community advocate, and the co-founder of WriteInGrahamForME.
Over 156,000 Mainers in June cast their ballots for a working-class candidate who spoke directly to the daily struggles we Mainers are facing. We chose Graham Platner, an oyster farmer, combat veteran, and former harbormaster. But, when sexual assault allegations came out after the primary, it was shocking how quickly the party establishment pulled the rug out from under him.
I can only imagine that Graham must have felt that everyone had abandoned him. And to our disappointment, he dropped out under the pressure. Overnight, voters had their votes and their voices essentially stolen from them.
In the fallout, the glue holding many of us Mainers, of different political beliefs, dissolved. Online Platner groups fell into chaos as members were told to join the Troy Jackson camp or walk away. I believe many left the Democratic Party and decided to sit out the election entirely, or write in Platner whether he appeared on the ballot or not.
It seemed nobody was giving these voters any direction or constructive path forward. That is why our grassroots effort, WriteInGrahamForME.com, was built.
Our first thought was, let’s make these write-in votes for Graham count. I believe thousands of Mainers are already planning to write in Graham Platner as a protest vote. But under Maine election law, write-in votes for an undeclared candidate are discarded and won’t even be tallied.
Secondly, if we can convince Platner to register as a write-in candidate, we can bring the disenfranchised voters back to the polls in November. We recognize this all hinges on convincing Platner to formally submit his declaration of write-in candidacy and we’re working on that. The deadline for the Secretary of State to receive Graham’s write-in candidacy application quickly approaches as it must be received by 5 p.m. on Aug. 25.
We keep hearing from Mainers that they are concerned that this will split the vote for Troy Jackson and allow Sen. Susan Collins to win. I would argue: Imagine that we brought back voters that were planning to stay home and made the protest write-in votes count. And we were able to convince them to rank Jackson as their second choice. These are votes the Jackson campaign likely wasn’t going to receive on their own. This is cheap insurance to be certain that Collins doesn’t win in November.
Ranked-choice voting makes vote-splitting virtually impossible. That is what it was designed to prevent. It eliminates the need to settle for the “lesser of two evils.”
Our strategy is clear and cooperative:
First choice: Write in Graham Platner to prove that the establishment doesn’t get to overrule the will of Maine voters.
Second choice: Rank Troy Jackson second to keep the seat competitive and ensure the anti-establishment vote remains united against Susan Collins.
If Graham does not have enough votes to advance during tabulation, those ballots are not wasted, they transfer over to Jackson in the next round if he is ranked second. I believe it is a mathematically solid plan to defeat Collins come election time.
Our movement is 100% grassroots, volunteer-run. We all believe that the 70% of Democratic primary voters who chose Graham Platner should decide who represents Maine.
We hope that Mainers help us by visiting our site, signing our petition, and letting Graham know that we never stopped supporting him or the movement he created.